Currently, self-cure or dual-cure dental restorative materials are used as resin cements, filling materials or core buildup materials. Dentists normally wait until the material gels or sets before they remove excess material and finish (or polish) the restoration. However, the gel and set times of those materials change as the material ages due to degradation of the redox initiator, so dentists have to constantly touch the material to check if the material has gelled or set. Not only this is inconvenient, touching the material before the material gels can also affect the set quality of the material and negatively impact the mechanical property of the material. Also, if the dentist waits too long before removing the excess material, it can be quite difficult to remove the excess material as it becomes too hard to remove. Currently there is no self-cure or dual-cure restorative material that has visual characteristics that tell the dentist when the material has gelled or set so that the dentist can start removing excess material or polish the restoration.
Some dentists prefer to remove excess material immediately (i.e., before gellation) upon placement or seating of the restoration. Current self-cure or dual-cure dental restorative materials are generally tooth colored or of neutral color such that there is insufficient contrast to easily identify where the excess material is, making removing excess material difficult.
There is thus a need for a dental restorative material that has visual characteristics prior to gellation that enable easy identification and removal of excess material if a dentist prefers to remove it immediately prior to gellation. There is further a need for a dental restorative material that has visual characteristics upon gellation or hardening to enable a dentist to precisely know when to remove the excess material after gellation without the need for constantly checking to see if the material has in fact gelled.